Monday, February 25, 2013

Follow Your Passion - You Just Don't Get It!

Why do
other bloggers write about Following Your Passion as "crappy advice?"
If you Google "Follow Your Passion" you will find a number of
articles on why it's the wrong thing to do or why it's crappy advice. Maybe somebody
is just missing the whole point! There are two articles I found provoking
enough to cause me to put fingers to my keyboard:

In one of
the questions in this article they talk about Steve Jobs and a speech Steve
made at his Stanford Commencement address. He told students (paraphrasing)
"You’ve got to find what you
love, don’t settle."The writer goes on to say that if you go back and read the
social media and press that surrounded that event people took him to say
"follow your passion" The writer also says if you read Steve's
biography it is not what he did. His passion at the time was eastern mysticism
and that he stumbled into Apple computer to try and make a quick buck. I did
find more of Steve Jobs quote during this speech which was not in this article.
He also said "the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you
haven't found it yet, keep looking."

This writer of this article clearly does not get what
following your passion is all about. He says "...Passion sounds more
accessible. If you're dumb, there is not much you can do about it, but passion
is something we think anyone can generate in the right circumstances. Passion
feels very democratic. It is the people's talent, available to all. It's also
mostly bullshit. Consider two entrepreneurs. Everything else being
equal, one is passionate and possesses average talent, while the other is
exceedingly brilliant, full of energy, and highly determined to succeed. Which
one do you bet on?" This writer gives us an example of when he was a loan
officer. His boss taught him that it was not good practice to loan money to
someone who was following their passion. The example he gave was "you
don't give money to a sports enthusiast who wants to open a sports store to
pursue his passion for all things sporty. That guy is a bad bet, passion and
all. He's in business for the wrong reason."

My confusion and concern with these two articles has to do
with the loose use of the word “success” and the writers’ interpretation of
success = passion. It begs the following questions: How do we define success in our lives? How do we define passion? Do success and
passion go together?

Success - I believe success is a personal achievement. It's
something that we make ourselves. It is about the lives we touch every day in
our own communities. It is about respect. It is about love. It is not about
money, how much of it you made, what wealth you achieved…it is a personal
journey that means something different for each one of us.

Passion - I believe passion is inside each of us. It's an
intense emotion that keeps us moving forward. Our passions are what drive us to
reach deep within ourselves to move in a direction that makes us happy and feel
fulfilled. Whether the passion is something we do as a hobby or something we do
as a career...it drives us. Whether the passion is something we use to help
others or we use to further ourselves...it drives us.

How does
the parent who has a passion to stay home and raise the kids define him or
herself…a “success” or a “failure”? Can others put a monetary value on his/her choice? Can that parent pursue
other passions and still be a stay at home parent? Of course they can! Can you be successful in your career like Steve Jobs and
still pursue other passions? Of course you can.

Sometimes,
like Steve Jobs, what we call successful careers are handed to us while we are
pursuing other passions. Does that mean all of a sudden we are not following
our passion? Do we consider "following our passion" a scale for
career? I hope not. We can be "successful" in our careers, enjoy our
jobs, and make a good living. Our passions do not have to dictate or define
what we do for a living or where we work. We cultivate the passion in our lives
each and every day. Life is about the never ending pursuit of happiness. We
learn and grow. I believe Steve Jobs was right in his quote " ...if you
haven't found it yet, keep looking."

The
person who walks into a bank to ask for a loan because he or she wants to start
a business based on "following their passion" should be given the
same opportunity as that person who walks into the bank to get a car loan. The
main reason the bank issues any person a loan is because the person has the
means to pay it back. It’s the well-thought out and the well-written business
plan that reassures the bank when assessing the level of risk. Passion is what
will drive that person to make it work. Just
because a person is following their passion does not mean they are
automatically at risk of financial failure in their business venture. That
gross generalization is demeaning for all of us who are out here doing what we
love and finding our definitions of success in following our passion.

We must
not put passion and success in a nice square box with a bow on top. We all
define them differently. We all reach our life's goals differently. We all
touch others lives differently. We all succeed differently.